Haunted House
by Dream Wreaver
Summary: Part 4 of Hell's Studio AU. Haunted Houses are fun, except when there's an actual demon involved. The one at Joey Drew Studios is mostly harmless, but he's good at pegging those who need to be taught a lesson. (A video game run through within the Hell's Studio universe)


Halloween was finally here, and Bendy was more than ready for it. The past week all deadlines had been postponed as everyone pitched in to help alter the studio into something worthy of Bendy's vision. Decrepit and rundown, ink stains everywhere, debris blocking hallways, faux demonic symbols (they'd really had to do their research to make sure it came out looking authentic without actually _being_ authentic, the last thing they wanted was to summon another demon), costumes, and the ambience. Bendy really had to hand it to Sammy and Boris, they'd done such a good job with the music and musical effects they hadn't had to change it in over 20 years, nor the tape recordings.

This was going to be great, the invitations (read _flyers_ ) had been sent out all over town and according to those manning the front there was a line out the door and down the street. No surprise, no one did a haunted house better than a demon. Everything was in place, the people were ready and willing. Bendy himself was prepping in Joey's old office, now his.

"Bendy?" It was Alice, "The people are gettin' antsy, are you ready?"

"Sure thing Angel-face," Bendy replied, "You got your wire in?"

"Right here," Alice tapped what was presumably her ear hidden under her hair. Bendy, Alice, and Boris were all to stay in constant communication; the latter two's jobs to let Bendy know if there were really little kids coming. He didn't want to scare them too bad, even with the waiver a really angry parent would find a loophole and sue. That was a PR nightmare he _didn't_ need on his hands. So, if need be Alice would play the guardian angel and let them out early, plenty of escapes on this ride.

"You?" she asked, referring to his own headset.

"Sunk in and ready to go," Bendy tapped one of his horns, "Ready or not then, it's showtime!"

BATIM

The night was always a huge success and a way for the studio to make even more cash for the holiday season. The idea was that the visitors would be handed an "axe" (really a plastic prop that was just strong enough to break a few of those prop boards strewn about the place) to fight off any terrors they might encounter. The goal was to then travel around the studio, gather objects, and summon the Ink Demon. Afterwards they would be transported to another part of the studio via a trapdoor (another reason for the waiver) where they would try and find another way out. To do this they would need to gather necessary objects and perform tasks, all the while dodging and destroying the searchers that could pop out at any time. The entire experience took around an hour to two hours, depending on whether or not the player had done this before, how good their logical skills were, and their reaction times to stimuli.

It was always a crowd pleaser and this year was no exception. Hours passed, the line dwindled as people passed through, solved the puzzles, and got a good scare out of it. Soon it was almost closing time, and though the decorations could be left up until tomorrow,  
Bendy was more than ready for a break. That was, until he heard something over his radio.

"Boss," it was one of the people manning the doors, "We got a Code R on our hands,"

Code R stood for code Rooster, usually because those coded as such were very cocky, until Bendy got involved, and then they went running like chickens. Bendy liked those kids the most because, as a demon, there was nothing more satisfying than seeing the look of pure terror a human's features would contort into when faced with something truly scary.

"Got it, send 'em in," Bendy couldn't repress the maniacal grin that stretched across his face and Alice had chosen the wrong time to check in on him.

"Bendy, how are you-" she paused seeing his expression, "We've got a Code R, don't we?"

"Indeed Angel," he replied, "And now, we're gonna have us some _fun_."

"Don't scare 'em too bad Ben," she tutted, "The Janitor wasn't very happy when he had to clean up all those puddles made the last time you had fun."

"The Janitor's paycheck is partly because of this thing, and he's paid to work," Bendy argued, "I'm gonna make those kids regret underestimatin' me."

Alice sighed, "It's not always about you, you know."

"I'm sorry, were _you_ the first creation, both on paper and in the ink, of Joey Drew?" he retorted.

Alice sighed, "No,"

"That's what I thought. Now watch an' relax while me an' the kids have some _fun_ ,"

BATIM

While the axe was presented it was not necessarily a requirement for the haunted house. That was part of the reason it could take longer and only the ones who really wanted to challenge themselves went without it. Of course, there was another axe located in the room leading from the trapdoor just in case, especially since Bendy had his seekers programed, for lack of a better word, to melt away at its touch.

But these kids, teenagers who thought they knew everything, had refused it. And to be fair, at first it was warranted. They had solved the puzzle to start up the ink machine in record time, unfazed by all the presumably spooky things happening. But then, then it was time for the real show to begin. Unlike the other tours where Bendy would pop up and reach out for those that had unleashed him, he radioed Boris for a quick change of plans. The ink spread out beneath their feel, but unlike regular ink Bendy made sure they could see it was seeking something.

Humans were curious, teenagers no exception. And while two of the three boys grew slightly nervous their leader had them press on and follow it. The seeking tendril lead back to the room where Boris lay with his inky chest propped open with fake ribs, some of his ink forming a heart. Before he was nothing more than a slight jumpscare for anyone who stumbled on the room. But now Boris knew the boys were there, he waited for the ink to begin to appear to pour into him. The inky heart began to beat, leaking lifeblood everywhere.

Boris paused a moment for dramatic effect. The boys were on tenterhooks waiting to see what would happen. The calm before the storm as it were. Then his eyes flashed open and from his slab the wolf rose. Slow, lumbering, but no less threatening. He approached them, using the spattered ink to make himself grow larger and larger. The boys blanched, and then they bolted.

Bendy made ink flood the hallway, barring every exit except the one with the trapdoor. The boys backed up together, and then the switch was flipped. The floor collapsed beneath them, and their yells echoed through the air. Boris shrank back down to normal size. Bendy collected his ink and reformed. They stood there a moment, staring at where the boys had fallen.

"Think they're scared?" Boris asked.

"They are, but I saw the look in their leader's eye," Bendy replied, "He'll fake bravado and make 'em press on. I want him alone."

"Bendy, don't you think you might be taking this a bit too far?" Boris asked noticing the expression on his longtime friend's face.

Bendy scoffed, "Kids these days have no respect, especially for their elders. I'm about to fix all that. Besides, they signed the waiver, it's their own fault."

Boris shook his head, "I'm done for the night Bendy, and after these kids you should be too."

"I will be," Bendy assured him, "But what's Halloween without one last huzzah?"

BATIM

The three boys woke up in a slight daze from the tumble they'd taken, two of them scared out of their wits at the creature they'd only narrowly escaped from.

"I think we're done here," one suggested. The other agreed. Their leader, however, did not.

"Don't tell me you guys were scared of some bozo in a cheap rubber mask," he scoffed.

"Mick," said one, "That didn't look like a guy in a mask."

"Of course it was," Mick replied, "What else could it be? Monsters only exist in the movies. Don't tell me you guys are scared. What are ya? Little girls?"

Ah yes, the thought of being feminine and therefore lesser, was ever an easy lever for hormonally all over the place boys. But it was then they noticed the interior of the room they'd been dropped into. Coffins stood upright and thankfully closed, and below them was another one of those pentagrams. The other two boys scrambled to their feet and out of its reach, Mick was unconcerned.

"So how do we get out of here?" asked the third.

Mick took a moment to search around the room for something. He spotted the secondary axe and retrieved it from the wall.

"Easy boys," he said, voice dripping with swagger, "We bust and chop our way out."

"You sure that's legal?" asked one of his friend.

"Wouldn't be here if it wasn't," Mick reasoned, "Now let's go or I'll leave ya behind."

They chopped their way through to the music department, and saw illuminated by the glow of a candle the first tape recorder.

"Should we play it?"

"Maybe it's a clue, this isn't a simple haunted house," said the other.

The button was pressed and the voice of the dearly departed Sammy Lawrence filled the otherwise silent air.

" _He appears from the shadows to rain his sweet blessings on me. The figure of ink that shines in the darkness. I see you my savior. I pray you hear me…"_

In a stain of ink on one of the walls Bendy waited, listening for his cue. Sammy had taught him over the years how to perfect his voice so that the illusion could continue for years to come. Here it came, the final line.

" _But, love requires sacrifice. Can I get an amen?"_

And there it was. In a perfect rendition of Sammy, Bendy called out, "I said, can I get an amen?"

The boys whirled around, eyes wildly searching for the source of the call. But to their mounting dear they saw no one. Despite their adrenaline pumping and their instincts telling them this wasn't fun anymore they still went on. Challenges issued and completed, the searchers coming after them and being destroyed with one touch of the sword. Until of course, Bendy had them overconfident again. They had almost found the exit when he sent searchers out from ink stains on the walls and floor. These ones had the aim to overwhelm and separate them. He wanted Mick all to himself. And it worked. The searchers backed the boys into an ink filled hallway where the boys were dragged under, then promptly deposited at the exit where Alice waited to calm them down. They were out of breath and only inches away from screaming their heads off.

"Hey, it's okay," she assured them, "You've just been chickened but your run was a little more, how do I put it, _intense_ than the others'."

"That studio really is haunted," they gasped out, "There were things in there. Those things wanted to kill us!"

"Now, now," Alice brought them back down again, "The point of a haunted house is to be scared, but you're never in any real danger."

"Yeah we were," they argued, "If it hadn't been for Mick with that axe-" as though mentioning him made them realize their friend was no longer with them they began to freak out again, "Where's Mick?" they demanded.

Alice shrugged helplessly, "He's in there," she pointed back into the studio scare, "Bendy's not done with him yet."

"When will he be?" one asked after a moment of tense silence.

"When your friend's near pissed himself in fear," was the only response the fallen angel could give, "Bendy really likes giving a good scare, and your friend was so rude it upset him, now he's gonna learn, the hard way."

"And this is legal?" the boys couldn't believe it.

"Hey," Alice shrugged again, "You boys all signed the waivers, we can't be blamed legally, for what's about to happen."

The two free boys looked at each other, then at Alice, and finally back at the studio. They couldn't say they envied Mick one bit.

BATIM

Mick was too busy fighting off the searchers to notice his friends were no longer at his side. And now Bendy had him right where he wanted him. But as much fun as coming out swinging was, he preferred to lull people into a false sense of security, then sucker-punch them. He'd devolved into his debut design and sent the ink to cover the entire wall in front of the little punk. Back against the opposite wall Mick didn't look scared, but his arms trembled as they held the axe out in front of him. Time for his grand entrance. From out of the inky abyss he materialized; short, monochromatic, and with that devilish grin that in these circumstances was just plain unnerving. He saw the kid's eyes widened, but he wasn't broken yet.

"That's it?" he tried to sound unimpressed, but it came out way too relieved instead, "The big bad scary ink monster isn't scary at all."

Careful what you wish for, Bendy thought as his grin widened even more. The ink from the wall began to drip down, pooling at their feet like the deepest part of the ocean. The right half of Bendy's face began to drip and melt like candlewax, obscuring his eyes and making his grin look terrifying. The ink built his stature up until he loomed over Mick. And then Bendy leaned in close, watching as the punk quaked, and whispered one word.

" _Run_ ,"

A deformed hand attached to a spindly limb slammed into the wall beside where Mick's head had once been. The kid ran, dropping the axe and hightailing it out of dodge as fast as he could. Bendy gave a rather half-hearted chase, not trying to catch the kid but also trying not to let him onto that fact either. He could hear the kid's heart pumping, the gasps for breath, the strangled scream that was trying to wrench itself out of his throat. Oh, it was exhilarating! That was the thing about scaring and being scared, the rush of adrenaline, how _alive_ it made one feel. And there was nothing that made Bendy feel more alive, more at peace with himself, than when he was critiquing drawings, or scaring the ever-loving crap out of someone.

The floor was eaten up by his blackness, the remnants of a nightmare was what it looked like to any third party. A child chased by a terrifying monster down a quickly disappearing hallway as everything began to fade to black. A universal terror, one that everyone knew.

Alice was warned to open the door they'd cleared up as Bendy made sure to chase Mick in that direction. When it flung itself open Mick didn't even question it, choosing to face the horrors that might await him instead of the one that most definitely did. Bendy slowed down just enough so that the door would slam on him, effectively "trapping" him inside. He heard Alice's muffled voice trying to soothe the punk, but Bendy had scared him good. He wouldn't be surprised if nightmares ensued for the next couple of nights. But then, he'd wanted a haunted house, and that was _exactly_ what he'd gotten.

BATIM

"I hope you're proud of yourself," Alice's barb was thrown, though how much malice was in it wasn't certain.

"Hey, there weren't any stains, of mine or his, left on the floor, so what are ya complaining about?" Bendy asked as he settled down into his drawer bed.

"Ya scared that poor kid nearly to death? D'ya know how white he looked when he came outta there? He was almost as white as _us_. Humans ain't supposed to be that white Bendy. You know better."

"I couldn't help myself," the tiny demon shrugged, "It was just too much fun."

"I know it was,"

"Y'really don't," Alice was only a _fallen_ angel. While she got some pleasure out of things less than heavenly, like pranks and slapstick, she couldn't truly understand the _depth_ of pleasure that came out of striking fear into the hearts of mortals like any other real demon was. But then, he was the only _real_ demon he knew.

"And you won't explain it?" she raised an unconvinced brow at him.

"It's not that I won't, I can't," he rebutted.

"And why not?" her heeled feet clacked across the floor as she sat down next to him.

"Fallen or not you're still an angel," Bendy told her, "And if you knew exactly how great and alive and _whole_ doin' that to that kid made me feel, y'd hate me."

"Bendy," she sighed, "I get it, you're a demon. But you're also better than this. I know you are. From now on, tone it down: even if the kids _do_ deserve it sometimes."

"I doubt that boy will ever be back,"

"I don't think his parents would be able to pay for all the therapy he'd need if he did."

They shared a laugh and Alice patted him on the head before rising and heading for her own bed, "G'night Bendy,"

"G'night Alice."

She made to leave, but paused and over her shoulder said, "Oh, and Happy Halloween."


End file.
